Friday, July 10, 2009

Ben's Dazed & Confused

As you know, I've been critical of this Ben Collins dude on Extra Bases since he came on there. I only check in with that site occasionally, but when I do, I can't read read two sentences of his without seeing something that outs him as not knowing his stuff. (Okay, not knowing his stuff enough to get paid for it.) It started with spelling Willie Mays wrong, and went from there.

Last night, he said David Ortiz hit a home run "to the deep part of the Monster." (Referring to where along the Wall the ball went, not how far back, as the ball just made it over.) The ball landed over the O or V in the Covidien sign, which is pretty much centered left-right on the Green Monster. Now I don't know about you, but I don't consider just left of the exact middle to be the "deep part." I'd say the right third of the Wall would be the deep part. I mean, it gets deeper as you go right toward center field, so "the deep part" is whatever you want it to be, but it shouldn't include anything left of the middle.

Then a thought came to me. A few games back, he said Jason Bay hit a home run into the as-yet claimed region of the Monster seats. Something cutesy like that. The ball was to the LEFT of the RIGHT light tower. I didn't know what he could possibly mean by uncharted or unclaimed or whatever he said. Maybe to the right of that tower, the small section of seats, could have a cute little name, but why the seats to the left? If he meant that home runs never go there, that would be wrong, and if he meant it hasn't been claimed by advertising signs, that would be wrong, too.

And that's when I made the connection. This Ben Collins guy thinks the Green Monster's dimensions get bigger as you go out to the middle of it, then get smaller as you reach center field. So, 310 down the line, out to....400? in left center...then back to 379 at the far end of the Monster out near center field. Come on! I know there's no foot marker on the wall in left center, but is there any question it's getting farther and farther from home plate as you go from left to center field?

Maybe he needs to look at the handy chart I made last year. He'll see Ortiz' ball reached the Monster at about the 340 mark. Come on, Collins! You can do this!